Facebook has numerous features to its advertising to make it even easier to attract potential customers. The most popular advertisement Facebook offers, the local awareness advertisement, was created by Facebook to help local businesses target people within a given radius as small as one mile. This is designed to increase the number of local visitors to your location, ultimately generating more business and to present new business opportunities. Continue reading

Growing your presence on social media can be tricky, especially if you are just starting out. Here are some tips on how you can make minimal changes to your social media platform, and quickly receive an increased number of followers. Continue reading

For businesses and agencies that need to keep track of multiple social media accounts, Hootsuite is the ultimate dashboard for social media management. Rather than remembering multiple passwords and going to each site to make posts, Hootsuite allows users to manage all of their social media accounts from a central location with either a free or Pro account (paid). Here are our top five benefits of managing social media accounts with Hootsuite. Continue reading

Facebook recently overhauled its advertising system, making it easier for advertisers to target specific audiences. When using Facebook Ads, advertisers will now see many different options in the “Audience” section, which can be used to narrow down the Facebook users who will be shown their advertisement. Most of these options, such as Location and Interests, were already available in Facebook’s old targeting system. However, Facebook has unveiled a Behaviors option, which offers advertisers the opportunity to improve campaigns directed at general or narrow target audiences. Behaviors are broken down into eight different categories, with each containing numerous subcategories.

Automotive:

The Automotive category sorts Facebook users in many different ways— based on the cars they own or are shopping for. Advertisers can appeal to general audiences such as individuals who have purchased used vehicles. They can also choose to be very specific by advertising to owners of a certain make, model, age, and price of a car.

Charitable Donations:

Facebook allows advertisers to target users who have made charitable contributions to a broad selection of organizations. Advertisers can be general by targeting those who have contributed to any charitable organization, or they can choose specific subcategories such as Animal Welfare, Health, Political, Environmental, and more. Continue reading

Businesses tend to think about Google+ as just another social network, similar to Facebook or Twitter. While this is basically true, Google+’s influence extends beyond social networking, and ignoring its presence can cause your business to fall behind.

So what exactly makes Google+ so valuable to businesses?

Google+ is guaranteed to have an effect on your search engine ranking

Google+ users receive a bump in Google search engine ranking simply by keeping an active Google+ account, providing fresh content and engaging with other users. A number of studies, such as the one done by Search Metrics*, show a powerful correlation between search rankings and the number of Google +1’s (equivalent to Facebook’s “Like” button).

Simply put, +1s will create a followed link back to your post, causing organic link building, which is an important part of any SEO strategy. In addition, +1s indicate to Google that your website has been vouched for by a third party, giving you another boost in the search ranking process.

As the world’s most popular micro-blogging website, Twitter has become an increasingly important tool for businesses to promote their products and services through word-of-mouth marketing and generate buzz about their brand. While businesses have used tweets, links, and hashtags since Twitter’s inception to engage with existing and potential customers, Twitter recently expanded businesses’ ability to advertise through Twitter Ads. Previously, Twitter Ads was limited to a select group of large companies and those who were invited to participate, but with a new self-service system, any business or individual can use this feature to promote tweets or accounts and increase followers.

For those not familiar with Twitter, here’s a brief overview. Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows its users to communicate by posting short updates known as “tweets” to their profiles and “following” each other’s tweets on their newsfeeds. Every Twitter user has a unique username, known as a Twitter Handle, which is prominently displayed on the user’s profile page and next to every tweet the user posts. Tweets are limited to 140 characters and often include links to other websites, articles, blog posts, or hashtags. Hashtags (symbolized by the # sign) allow users to search for tweets with specific subjects or phrases, such as #JobInterview or #SmallBiz. You can learn more about Twitter from PRMG’s previous post.

Before Twitter Ads, businesses focused on engaging with consumers by tweeting frequently, using popular hashtags, and sharing blogs and other links about their products, services, or industry. With these tools, businesses could build rapport with their followers, strengthen their online presence, and connect their websites and blogs to a social media forum. However, it was often harder to attract new customers, as businesses could not specifically target those they wanted to reach. Twitter updates could also be very time-consuming, and full engagement with followers could distract from other social media and marketing strategies. In addition, including too many links on a Twitter profile would seem like spam and deter Twitter users from following the business. Twitter Ads solves many of these problems and can improve the effectiveness of social media marketing.

Twitter Ads comes in two forms: Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts. With both Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, businesses target a specific audience in order to drive traffic to their profile. Businesses choose a location—city, state, or country—to focus on, and then narrow to their target audience by filtering through specific genders, interests, and other criteria. For example, a music store can target people who like to play instruments and a golf club can target men who live in a suburban area. As a result, a business’s Twitter activity will reach those who are most likely to engage with the product or service.

After finding a target audience, the two Promoted approaches start to differ. Promoted Tweets work the same way as regular tweets, and they allow businesses to broaden their reach and inform the intended audience about special offers, press releases, and other information relevant to the business or industry. The Promoted Tweet targets the chosen audience and stays at the top of the Twitter users’ newsfeeds when they log in, whether or not the users are currently following the company. A Promoted Tweet is often better for a short-term approach, such as attracting business immediately for a one-day sale or special event, though it can also increase followers. Promoted Tweets can also be used to generate traffic to a blog post or article on another website. On the other hand, Promoted Accounts can be more beneficial for a long-term approach that focuses on building a stronger customer base or increasing brand awareness. Promoted Accounts use an algorithm to track potential followers with similar characteristics of current followers and appear on a side bar of a Twitter user’s profile in the “Who to Follow” recommendation section. Overall, Promoted Accounts are better for building and maintaining relationships. Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts can be used separately or in conjunction.

Because Twitter Ads is now self-service, businesses set a daily spending limit and can stop, start, or resume advertising at any time. This new system that Twitter uses is very similar to the Pay-Per-Click system used by Facebook Advertising and Google AdWords. Twitter only charges when a Twitter user clicks the link to follow the Promoted Account or engages with the Promoted Tweet through a retweet, follow, favorite, reply, or link. As a result, the business remains in complete control of its advertising budget and strategy.

Furthermore, with both Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, businesses can track the success of their advertising with Analytics that show the increase in the number of followers or clicks-per-link, as well as how their budget has been spent. The Analytics feature separates increased traffic and activity that occur organically from traffic and activity that result from concentrated marketing efforts, demonstrating the effectiveness of the campaign.

As Twitter continues to gain in prominence, consider your goals for social media marketing. Do you want to expand your customer base by targeting a specific market? Do you want to further engage already-existing customers or spread the word about a new product or service? Twitter Ads may be worth the time and investment.

If you are interested in Twitter Ads or have any questions about your social media strategy, contact 1-855-PRMG-123 or info@theprmg.com .

Recently, Facebook introduced Graph Search, a new feature that combines characteristics of a search engine with an individual’s social network for personalized search results. With dual emphasis on online searching and social networking, Facebook Graph Search presents an opportunity for businesses to improve their social media strategies and better understand consumers, while increasing visibility and attracting new customers.

Finding Your Customers

Unlike a regular search engine, Facebook Graph Search allows businesses valuable insights into their consumer bases’ demographic information and finds general patterns in consumer behavior. It offers criteria to narrow down results from its one billion users to the specific audience your business will target. For instance, an auto dealership can search specifically for “People in New York who like SUVs,” or an Italian restaurant can search for “People in Connecticut who like pizza.” The results can also reveal characteristics about a customer base (Do more women than men like to drive SUVs? Do most people who like pizza also like Pepsi?), which your company can use to tailor services and marketing strategies to a target market.

Furthermore, if your business’s page has many comment and likes, you can search within your own network to find which consumers have been most actively engaged with your product/services through social media. Such information can help your business determine how to best engage existing and potential customers through Facebook.

Let Your Customers Find You

Graph Search also enables potential customers learn more about you. When a business appears in Graph Search, the search entry offers a paragraph of information, which includes the user’s friends who “liked” the business. This feature increases awareness of your organization and can help you build trust with prospective consumers by leveraging their friends as professional references.

Most importantly, Graph Search provides word-of-mouth marketing, augmenting Facebook’s importance as a marketing tool. If a consumer is searching for a restaurant in New York City, he could type a general search into Google and find 588,000,000 results. But with Graph Search, he can use Facebook to search for “Restaurants in New York City my friends like” and receive a personalized list based on Facebook pages for restaurants that his friends have “liked.” By increasing the search rankings and visibility of your company, Graph Search increases the value of each “like” your company receives.

In mid-April, Facebook began testing ads in the results for Graph Search, and currently, only a limited number of companies have been given the opportunity to advertise with Sponsored Results ads. We expect Facebook will soon expand to allow more companies to advertise and shortly thereafter will introduce targeted ads related to specific search queries (similar to how Google Ads works).

By combining the convenience of a Google Search with the trust friends’ recommendations, Graph Search has the potential to become a strong marketing tool for any business. To maximize the potential of Graph Search, you may need to rethink your current Facebook strategy (or create one). We recommend that you post new content often, have more conversations with your followers, and use the Search Results to better understand the effectiveness of your current strategies. Adapt your marketing strategies and products/services to entice your target customers, by utilizing the data that Facebook is now making available.

For help optimizing your current social media strategy, reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn— or contact info@theprmg.com to discuss setting up social media pages and creating an effective social media strategy that is tailored to your business.

Yahoo buying Tumblr brings to mind an important question for businesses with an online presence: Will Yahoo make Tumblr better or worse?

But first to answer a question that many have been asking — What is Tumblr? the confusing answer is a microblogging site where you choose the medium of your blog. The easy answer is it’s a website where you use a combination of photos or videos along with printed captions to entertain an audience with the attention span of a goldfish (although strictly speaking you can choose any combination of Text, Photo, Quotes, Links, Chat, Audio or Video). This means no long blog posts just something short, informative and entertaining.

As soon as Yahoo announced its intended acquisition of Tumblr, bloggers began screaming their disapproval. But these microbloggers are missing the point — Yahoo doesn’t want Tumblr, it wants Tumblr’s users (mostly Gen Y/Millenials) to start using Yahoo. Yahoo’s current demographics are older adults (Gen Y’s parents), and is having trouble diversifying their consumer base. Thus Yahoo will be wooing Tumblr’s users, and will be careful not to alienate them.

As Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer puts it, “We promise not to screw it up.” Yahoo will be keeping the layout that Tumblr has worked hard to perfect and David Karp, the current Tumblr CEO, will remain in charge with creative power, his current staff and current branding. In short, post-Yahoo Tumblr will be nearly identical to pre-Yahoo Tumblr.

So why all the hype? We all know that more of the same is bad for business, and we expect 2 major changes that might lure more businesses to Tumblr: Searchability & Advertising.

Yahoo remains one of the top 15 search engines worldwide. This comes from advanced search algorithms, experience and power. We expect Yahoo to impart some of this know-how to increase the searchability of Tumblr blogs— thereby helping to expand reach, influence, and the roi of your pages.

Advertising remains the best way to monetize social media, and Yahoo is forecasting a significant increase in the value of Tumblr due to ad-based revenue (remember in 2012 Tumblr had an annual revenue of $13 million but just sold for $1.1 billion). Bloggers will have the options to opt-in to ads which gets rid of the negative reception for consumers who associate ads with annoyance.

For all of us who have been watching major social networks as they integrate advertisements and sponsored posts, we can recognize the potential inherent in Tumblr advertisements. We know the value of a Facebook like is about $174.14, and with the continued expansion of social media networks and social media advertising, the value is poised to rise. Connecting with prospective/current customers has always been important, and Tumblr is no exception. Every generation has a favored social network and Tumblr will be critical for marketing to Gen Y and Z.

It is our recommendations: If you’re not currently on Tumblr, then at least advertise on it. Tumblr is poised to grow, and your company should be ready for it.

With the amount of social media programs available on the Web, businesses must be able to efficiently leverage time spent on social media marketing. This article will provide readers with a brief introduction to the social media services Eventbrite, Tweriod, WiseStamp, Disqus and Mr. Unfollowr. These five tools are quick to use, helpful and conveniently free of charge.

1. Eventbrite — Eventbrite’s mission is to make events as easy to create, find and attend as possible. With this online service, businesses can create and promote events online. This tool allows users to customize event pages, integrate with email marketing services, connect with Facebook and offers the ability to scan QR-coded tickets for attendees with smartphones at the door. If your event is free, this service is free to use. For paid events, there is a small fee to sell tickets online.

2. Tweriod — This tool analyzes both your company’s tweets and your followers’ tweets to provide you with the best times and days to send tweets. By tweeting during time periods where you’ll receive the most exposure, you will make the most out of your efforts. Businesses should run a free monthly Tweriod analysis and use the provided data to schedule posts in programs such as HootSuite or TweetDeck. For more information on scheduling social media posts at the right times, please read our article, “Timing is Everything: When to Blog, Tweet and More.”

3. WiseStamp — WiseStamp allows users to create unique, branded email signatures through customized apps. For example, you can link your email signature to any social network, share your latest WordPress blog articles, include QR codes and much more. The free version of WiseStamp allows users to create one personal and one corporate email signature.

4. Disqus — For those who receive an excessive amount of spam in the comment section of their blog, Disqus can be very helpful. This free tool can get rid of spammers by upgrading your comment system so that users must create an account before they can comment. This program is compatible with WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Drupal, HTML and JavaScript. Also, Disqus has been approved by the Google Search Quality team to be organically crawled unlike any other comment platform.

5. Mr. Unfollowr — If you need to clean up your “following” list on Twitter, this free program will help you keep track of people who have stopped following your account. To join, just follow @unfollowr on Twitter and you will receive digests to your email or direct messages with a list of unfollowers. This is a great tool to remove inactive or unfruitful accounts and ensure that you aren’t losing any important business contacts or personal connections.

For more information, please contact The Public Relations and Marketing Group at (631) 207-1057 or johnzaher@theprmg.com. You can also visit our blog for more valuable articles, advertising spotlights and more.

On June 19, LinkedIn announced that companies are now able to send targeted status updates to followers of their company pages. Aiming to increase company engagement on LinkedIn, users can now tailor the way they communicate with followers and help meet their unique needs.

Thanks to this new capability, businesses are now able to update their company pages through the popular social media publishing giant, HootSuite. This is incredibly convenient for businesses and marketers since it’s now easier than ever to update multiple social media platforms in one place.

One of LinkedIn’s challenges has been that, compared to other social media platforms, users are less engaged and typically spend less time on the site. For example, according to Nielsen, visitors to LinkedIn averaged only 16 minutes and 46 seconds on the site in April while Facebook saw visitors spend an average of more than seven hours on the site in one month alone.

However, with these new updates, LinkedIn users should enable better listening and engagement between companies and professionals. Like with all social media, the power lies in exploring new frontiers, making connections and developing relationships with people.